I wonder if this is what Italians felt like with Berlusconi?
Anyway, yeah, the problem isn’t Trump, the problem is that the GOP has spent decades cultivating ignorance. They don’t like what science tells them, so they attack science, be it basic evolution or climate change. They proudly state that they’re creating their own reality when shit is going upside down in Iraq and Afghanistan. They state that Obamacare is the worst thing to happen in American history when it’s drawn for their own damn proposal (and they liked it when a GOP governor enacted it that they nominated that dude for President).
So, yeah, now they’re surprised that a motherfucking maniac who’s so obviously spouting bullshit out his ass is winning? This is what happens when you feed nothing but red meat to your followers for years.
Well people did vote George Bush into office, and 2 terms too.
This year is Hillary’s campaign to lose. The electoral math has swung to the Democrats in the last 8 years, and the Republican Party has angered their base. One of two things will happen. Trump will win the primary, and the ‘moderate Republicans’ and leaning independents will stay home. The Senators running for election will have to run away from the party candidate, not towards it, further depressing Republican turn out, and Hillary will have Obama and Bill campaigning on her behalf, and although we won’t have record turn out, it will be enough. If Rubik wins, the Hardcore Trump people will stay out of the election, and although he will do better, that lack of support from the lunatic fringe will cost them the votes in PA and OH, and Clinton will Win. Final, Cruz might do a slightly better chance of threading the needle, but the attack ads against and shutting down the government will cost him some of the moderates, and his lack of Trump in the name will cost him some of the lunactic fringe. I doubt he’ll carry PA, and I doubt that senators running for election will want to associate with him.
Well, I’d argue Bush was a very different beast. Personally, he had none of the acerbic, abrasive, nastiness that Trump revels in. While arguably not the, um, most intellectual of our presidents, he did have a sense of the gravity and weight of the office, and I think, in his own way, respected it. He also had people around him who actually were interested in policy and were committed to actual programs and policies, though God knows I hated most of 'em. Don’t get me wrong, W’s presidency won’t go down in my book as our shining hour, but as we saw, we lived through it, albeit with some nasty legacies (some of which the Democrats were complicit in creating).
Trump, on the other hand, well, it’s hard to see him in anything but a harsh light. No respect for, well, anything but himself. Not only no policies, but no desire for any policies, and apparently a Mussolini-like belief that sheer belief and the power of action will prevail. “Triumph of the Will,” indeed.
Chuck
5866
The people didn’t vote Bush into office… the Supreme Court did.
So Trump would be the result of advising a Republican presidential candidate to embrace many major Democratic themes*? I suppose that makes sense once you realize the percentage of the electorate that despises “Obamacare”, but those same people love the major parts of it when asked about discrete policies. Tribalism > Substance or actual self-interest.
- Which is not necessarily how they all act once in office
Oghier
5868
That’s the big mystery with Trump, too. I can’t say I’ve followed his career closely, but I never picked him as a populist. Or a xenophobic nationalist. Is he, or is this brilliant marketing?
So Trump refuses to condemn David Duke and the white supremacists who have endorsed him:
“Just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK?” Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
“I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists,” he said. “So I don’t know. I don’t know – did he endorse me, or what’s going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke; I know nothing about white supremacists.”
There are only two ways to take this: either Trump is being intentionally disingenuous in order to keep the support of the white supremacists, or he sincerely doesn’t know who David Duke is …
… in which case he’s unqualified to be President. It’s not like Duke is some obscure figure. He was all over the national news in the early 90s, a time when you’d think a fully-grown adult with political aspirations would be paying attention to national events. And even if Trump spaced out the 90s, you’d expect him to be properly briefed by his campaign staff because, you know, repudiating endorsements from white supremacists ought to be a no-brainer.
But ordinary concerns of decency and competence don’t apply to Trump, so no doubt his numbers will go up.
Trump is a long-time xenophobic nationalist. That goes back consistently to the 1980s - anti-NAFTA, anti-immigration, anti-Japan before he was anti-China etc.
The idea that Trump is a “populist” is new, and mostly made up by his followers and the media. Trump has always loved trash-talking his fellow zillionaires (it’s part of his whole complex of daddy issues, where he feels the need to lash out at anyone above him.) People have interpreted his urge to make the Bloombergs and Murdochs of the world suffer as a desire to help the middle class, which of course does not follow. Trump mainly wants to help Trump.
Trump also loves to make off-the-cuff remarks when he’s not interested or doesn’t know anything about an issue - “That’s terrible, I’d fix that,” “We’ll do something about that,” etc. People have taken these remarks as supporting, say, better health care, when they’re really just Trump saying, “I’m bored, let’s talk about something more fun instead.” CertainlyTrump’s tax plan is a bunch of giveaways that mostly benefit the rich.
The New York Times to the rescue. It’s as if Trump doesn’t realize there are search engines and the internet and stuff.
The discussion of Mr. Trump’s support among white supremacists comes on a day when he also re-posted a tweet quoting Benito Mussolini, the founder of the fascist movement, and called for the libel laws to be weakened so that he could more easily sue the press when it covers him critically.
Mr. Trump’s lack of knowledge of Mr. Duke was surprising because he said as recently as Friday that he did disavow Mr. Duke’s support.
The Manhattan businessman also expressed his disapproval of Mr. Duke back in 2000 after deciding not to embark on a presidential bid in the Reform Party.
“The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani,” Mr. Trump said in a statement, referring to Pat Buchanan and Lenora Fulani, the former standard-bearer of the New Alliance Party and an advocate of Marxist-Leninist politics. “This is not company I wish to keep.”
But on Sunday, Mr. Trump insisted that he would not condemn someone who he does not know anything about.
“I don’t know David Duke,” he said. “I don’t believe I have ever met him. I’m pretty sure I didn’t meet him. And I just don’t know anything about him.”
This is not surprising, I guess. I was reading through Mussolini’s basic tract on fascism (“What is Fascism,” from 1932, written with Gentile) for something I was preparing for one of my classes (a version can be found here, among other places) and I sort of wondered whether Trump was just cribbing his notes.
But of course it’s off-limits to accuse anyone of actually channeling real fascists, because…well, I’m not sure exactly, other than the gross over-use of the label by people who associate anything they don’t like or which is vaguely authoritarian with fascism. But in some cases, the shoe fits…and the trains run on time.
MikeJ
5874
The post I was responding to suggested that Trump supporters had grown wise to GOP tricks in taxes and economic policy. I was only suggesting that at least on the tax front they are falling for the same old thing. Of course, maybe they are grading on a curve, since Rubio’s tax plan is even more tilted to the wealthy.
On the economic policy front, I don’t think they’d be pleased with the outcome of enacting Trump’s policies either, but at least he’s saying what they want to hear.
Thank you. In a few sentences, you articulated something I couldn’t put my finger on but had noticed. Thanks!
(Kind of off the subject, in 2001 when Mike Martz took over the Rams to be head coach after serving as the offensive coordinator who built the “Greatest Show On Turf”. Dubbed “Mad Mike” by the local press, Martz was famous for doing crazy stuff like not practicing special teams and hustling his defense off the field after truncated workouts to do more stuff with his offense. The Rams had the most penalties of any team that year, and they were dumb penalties: delays of game, false starts, offsides, ineligible men downfield, too many players, etc. They also had such an elaborate playcalling system that it was fairly typical for the team to burn all three timeouts in the first quarter of games. When he’d be pressed on these lunkheaded, easily-avoided mishaps, Mad Mike would invariably respond “Shoot, we’ll fix that.” And of course, he never did. That Trump thing reminds me a lot of that, for some reason.)
Timex
5876
I’ve been saying this for a while. Republicans and Democrats call each other fascists all the time.
But Trump is, in a very literal sense, a fascist demagogue. A man like that cannot be allowed to be president.
I think, even worse than the David Duke claimed ignorance is when he goes on to say that he can’t disavow the Klan or other white supremacist groups because he doesn’t know anything about them and would need to do research. We know the David Duke feigned ignorance is a lie but to pretend like you don’t know what the Klan is beggars belief.
This article is pure snark and condescension but it’s also hilarious and at times spot on.
http://gawker.com/donald-trump-believes-his-supporters-are-morons-hes-ri-1729279807?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=Gawker_facebook](http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/28/politics/donald-trump-white-supremacists/)
Nothing that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth bears the slightest resemblance to real policy positions that might be put into place by a real president. I am not talking about whether or not his policies are liberal or conservative. I am talking about whether they are in any way based in the real world, or whether they are the off-the-cuff ravings of an egotistical jackass whose own jackassery is exceeded only by that of his supporters. The answer is the latter. His position on immigration is impossible. His position on economics is made up on the spot. He speaks of international trade agreements as if he was speaking of fantasy football. Donald Trump will appoint super smart guys to make good deals and tell those Chinese what’s what! Why didn’t anyone else think of this?
The off-the-cuff ravings of an egotistical jackass is pretty much the perfect description of Trump’s “policy positions.”
Hal9000
5878
Every day I walk by people who like him. That is in an of itself a creepy thought. The zombie horde looks just like us.
Was at my son’s basketball game yesterday and two older gents were talking about attending a rally for him, one of their wives had a huge “Make America Great Again” sign she’d made for it. Bit my tongue, though it wasn’t easy.
The comedy of Trump is so badly diminished by the fact that we speak English and not German.
Karl der Grosse, indeed.
(he really would make America gross though :( )
I got my first ever robo political call on my cell phone today for my states March 8 caucus. The first 30 seconds was all clips of Donald Trump making crazy attacks against Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich. So I assumed it was anti Trump or maybe pro Rubio ad. Wrong it was actually a pro-Trump ad. I’ll never understand the appeal of Trump.
